Articles

Helping Parents Finding Answers for Teens’ Tough Questions

by Heather Melcher
 on July 21, 2015
v 0

Download a PDF of this Parenting Point to print and share with parents of teens.

Prayer and The Bible: Always start out by asking the Holy Spirit to help you. Use a study Bible, concordance and/or online resource like www.biblegateway.com to find what the Bible says about the question your child is asking.  My favorite study Bibles are:

  • Faith Alive Bible – designed to appeal to older children and teens, ESV version
  • The Lutheran Study Bible – designed for teens and adults, ESV version
  • Concordia Self Study Bible – designed for teens and adults, old NIV version

They are all published by Concordia Publishing House and available at www.cph.org.

Ask Your Pastor: If your pastor does not know the answer himself, he will likely have a book about the topic or know a professor or other pastor who can help.

Visit www.lcms.org: Check The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod website. Type the topic of your question in the search bar to see links or documents related to that topic.

Get a Book from CPH: Concordia Publishing House, the official publishing company of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod offers some great books designed to help answer tough questions about faith. I like getting books from CPH rather than just whatever I can find at a Christian bookstore or library because CPH is very careful to keep everything true to the Bible. Every resource goes through doctrinal review by highly trained pastors before being published.

Some books that are especially handy when helping teens think through tough questions are:

Faith and Science in a Skeptical Age
by Jesse Yow, editor. Concordia Publishing House, 2014.
Summarizes the positions of science and the Bible on various topics teens are thinking about including the big bang theory, aliens, spirituality, magick, witchcraft, dreams, demons, angles, heaven hell, cloning, stem cell research and various others.

Starting at the End: Worldview, God’s Word and Your Future
by Brad Alles. Concordia Publishing House, 2013.
Compares several worldviews including Secular Humanism, Marxism, New Age, Islam and Christianity. Alles examines the assumptions, philosophy, ethics and expected future of each belief system.

Life’s Big Questions, God’s Big Answers
by Brad Alles. Concordia Publishing House, 2010.
Discusses evolution, creation, the Bible, Jesus’ existence, postmodernism, tolerance, being able to defend our faith, witnessing and other topics.

Called to Believe, Teach, and Confess: An Introduction to Doctrinal Theology
by Steven P. Mueller, editor. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005.
Explains Lutheran Christian beliefs in more depth than what we have in Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. The author is a professor at a LCMS University.

Published July 21, 2015
Engaged Parents Faith Conversations For Parents Lifelong Learner Supporting Youth

About the author

Heather Melcher
Heather Melcher is a certified DCE. She has been a Christian for as long as she can remember, a farm wife since 2000, a mom since 2003, and a published author since 2008. She lives way out in the country on her husband’s family’s farm in eastern Washington. She splits her time between freelance writing and substituting for teachers and para-educators at her children’s school. Heather has a Director of Christian Education specialist diploma and a Master of Parish Education degree from Concordia University in Nebraska. Prior to her time in Nebraska, Heather lived in Canada and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Psychology, from the University of British Columbia. Her studies focused on human development, learning, and memory.
View more from Heather

Related Resources

Why Build Resilient Youth in Youth Ministry?

Why Build Resilient Youth in Youth Ministry?

What is a resilient identity in Christ and why is it important for a healthy youth ministry? Check out this blog from the Seven Practices of Healthy Youth Ministry to find out more.

The Habits That We Make – Fundraising

The Habits That We Make – Fundraising

Should youth ministry, or any other ministry for that matter, rely on fundraising to significantly support their ministry functions? Sometimes the habits of fundraising get youth ministry into trouble. This article is designed to help you think more strategically about fundraising.

The Habits That We Make: Parents

The Habits That We Make: Parents

We all have harmful habits, even in our churches. This article helps us think about how we might have habits where parents are not growing in their own Biblical education or even expecting the church and its workers to be the primary teachers of the Christian faith for their children. By identifying these kinds of habits, we can see how we might change them.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Change or Experience?

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Change or Experience?

As youth workers, we need to remember that this cohort that experienced the COVID pandemic during their younger years experienced it differently than adults. Through research, Dr. Tina Berg has been able to identify key learnings that can help us care for young people, particularly confirmands, in the wake of the pandemic.

The Habits That We Make – Isolation

The Habits That We Make – Isolation

We all have habits, some intentionally developed and others not. Knowing our habits in ministry can be important. For example, we may tend to isolate kids and/or youth from the rest of the congregation. This article talks about how to identify this habit and push against it.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

How do I know if our youth ministry program is healthy and properly caring for our teens?

Discover how you can enhance your youth ministry and serve the youth in your church with Seven Practices of Healthy Youth Ministry.

Learn More
Share This